?Eat Mendocino' local diet project approaches half-year mark

"Salt has become such a precious commodity and it has been one of those things that this project has highlighted," said Sarah Bodnar, one-half of the Eat Mendocino Project. "It's one of those things that we have commonly available, but become assets like gold when they are in limited supply."

"2 women, 365 days, 3,878 square miles," is the title line on Bodnar's and Gowan Batist's blog, www.eatmendocino.com. The project began on Jan. 1, with these two young women emptying their cupboards of everything not created locally. Then, they began their year-long journey of eating food only grown, harvested and produced in Mendocino County, right down to the salt and pepper on their table.

Batist is a farmer; she manages the farm at the Noyo Food Forest in Fort Bragg. Bodnar runs the social media business called Social Media Sisters and has taken over as organizer of the Mendocino Farmers Market, held on Friday afternoons in the summer.

Their rules are fairly simple to understand, but hard to live by. They eat strictly locally produced food, which means all of the ingredients must be grown or harvested within the county. There are no exception for staples, such as seasoning, oils or grain. If they are traveling, they will eat food only locally grown in that area, or take their local food with them. Their top priority is to grow enough food for themselves, then supplement their diets with items from local farmers, ranchers and fishermen.

Bodnar shared a story about when she was baking her first loaf of bread in April.

"The recipe called for flour and salt," said Bodnar. "I took my salt jar out of the cupboard and it was almost completely empty. I was literally scraping the salt jar to get enough salt for this recipe."

She explained that locally harvested salt is hard to come by in the county, despite the proximity to the Pacific Ocean. In addition, the company that harvested salt locally suspended production in November due to urgent family needs.

"There was only a limited number of [the local] salt on the shelves when we started this project and each jar is about $15 a piece," she said. "There was only so much salt we could buy. We were in this race in how much salt we could afford, to how long the salt was going to be out there."

The week prior to baking the loaf of bread, Bodnar said she had been searching the stores unable to find another jar of local salt.

"I had no idea where the salt was going to come from," she explained. "You cannot live without salt, our bodies need it, plus everything tastes worse without it. That was my realization at 6 a.m. and I didn't know what we were going to do."

As the bread was rising, she began to send emails out hoping there would be another jar of salt in Ukiah.

"By 8:15 a.m. Gowan showed up," she said. "She has a basket full of food that a friend brought her from his farm in Comptche, with all sorts of things he had canned, preserved and dried and this huge jar of salt.

"When she pulled it out, I felt my whole face change," Bodnar recalled, laughing at the memory. "It was like survival was going to be possible. It was that big of a feeling.

"This whole year has been like that, we have no idea where food is going to come from sometimes. I am currently living without a car, so I am not able to travel and source food as creatively as I was before. I have no idea how it is going to get from A to B, don't know when things are going to be available, don't know what the weather is going to bring. On the other hand, it has been a big leap of faith, and it always works out. It has been amazing."

The message

As their project approaches the halfway mark, Batist said that the original statements behind the project have changed.

"I wanted to start this project in a reaction to the concept that local food has to be elitist," said Batist.

"We began this project with the philosophy of starting where you are, with the resources you have," she continued. "Sarah and I are both young 20-somethings with not a whole lot of money. But, it has really transformed since then.

"Originally, it was just me who decided to do this project and I did a couple months last year in the summer and fall to prepare. What I found the first month was that I had no idea what I was doing. I thought that I could pull it off and that since I was a farmer, I knew what I was doing. I also expected, since it was the middle of summer, there would be plenty of food. That was not the case. I didn't know nearly enough about where to get basic staples.

"The community [and friends] stepped up and wound up saving me. They rallied around and fed me.

"Now, this is more than just a political statement, it has become more about this community. It takes community connections to make it work."

She said it is possible to make a sustainable, healthy and viable food economy here in Mendocino. Traditionally, enough food used to be grown locally to sustain the people on the coast.

"What you have to have are relationships and connections. That is what the project has become; it is about showing those connections and celebrating those people, those farmers.

"It is a great way of thinking, to think about what you are for, instead of what you are against. It was something we had to live through to get our head around."

Physical changes

"I thought I was really healthy before and [that I] ate locally," said Batist. "I was in no way prepared for this."

She said her skin has cleared, her hair has become shinier and grows faster.

"Early in the project I had pretty low energy, until we learned how to eat the right thing at the right time," Batist said. "At first, we didn't have any carbs. We had no potatoes, no grain. That was hard and we both lost weight."

She said once she figured out how to balance her new diet, she regained some of the weight.

"I am a lot healthier, I sleep better," Batist said. "My body doesn't have any stimulants, no sugar or caffeine. However, I have energy during the day, then I come home and sleep, and I sleep good. I work physically hard for a living, but I found that I have so much energy I go to the gym five days a week before I go to work.

She said in addition to those benefits, her body has also found a natural rhythm and her reproductive health has improved.

"My body has responded very positively. [It] is getting a lot more of what my body needs it was like my body was [saying], "Oh my god, animal fat. Oh my god vegetables. Every day. Make babies. [It] seemed to respond to being healthy by going into hormonal overdrive."

Bodnar, who was used to having a structured diet, such as gluten-free, said she was surprised to feel the improvements to her health.

"I have gone through different dietary regimes trying to find optimal health," said Bodnar. "For years I have experimented with cutting things out. When I chose to do it this year, it definitely was not first for my health or for my body. I knew I was going to be doing things I hadn't done before, such as experimenting with whole grains. Within a month, I was astonished to find I felt healthier than I had for years.

"Now I am experimenting cooking with gluten and grain, and so far, that has been good in moderation. I think the biggest health benefit has been eating 100 percent whole foods. Nothing is processed, nothing comes out of a can or a box. I think, when we eat whole ingredients, our body knows what to do with it more. Over all, I have never felt healthier in my life.

Do you expect

to continue?

"Yes and no," answered Batist. "I do expect to continue. I don't think I will go back to getting foods that are shipped from all over."

She said she doesn't plan to go back to drinking coffee or eating chocolate.

"I know for a lot of people that is the big change. They ask me how can I give up chocolate, but I don't miss it anymore.

"I probably won't be as strict about it, because it is a big hassle. The one thing I don't like is this has kept us from participating in events and tastings that are celebrating local food or are featuring local food, but they use pepper."

Batist explained pepper is not produced locally, so eating it would violate their diet rules.

"There have been a lot of things we have had to pass on," she said. So I would want to relax some of that, but as a lifestyle, probably 99 percent of this I will do forever."

Vegetarian local diet

Bodnar and Batist are not vegetarians. Batist said that for the first three months, she primarily survived off of plant and animal matter. She added that by April, she hadn't had any grain in six months.

"It would be very hard to find enough sources of protein in vegetable forms that are local," explained Batist. "A lot of nut protein central to vegan diets is hard to find locally. We also have very small amounts of things like dried beans. And we don't have a lot of corn out here.

"There is no local soy, or local macadamia nuts, no coconut oil, and bananas don't come from here."

She said there is the Mendocino Grain Project that can help though.

"My boyfriend is vegetarian and he is talking about doing it for six months. I think it would be a really interesting goal, I hope he does it."

How to begin

Batist said anyone who is interested in eating locally doesn't have to take the extreme measures she and Bodnar have taken.

"What we are doing is extreme and the point is to show that anyone can make an effort in smaller leaps," she said. "We are not doing this because we think everyone should be doing this. Anything that they do is good. You do not have to be extreme for it to be meaningful. Everything is meaningful and important."

She said a good place to begin is by going to the local farmers markets.

"You can even use food stamps at the farmers market," she said, explaining anyone on any budget can eat locally. "I also donate food to the food bank, so you can get my produce there, too."

She said the best thing to do when going to the farmers markets is to take time to meet people.

"Local food is about making connections," Batist said. "Another good way to get involved with local food is to come help out at the Noyo Food Forest. We always need help and we will totally feed you. It is the same stuff I eat and it is a good way to get connected."

Bodnar suggested asking the farmers about the food they are selling.

"If you are buying some rhubarb and you don't know what to do with it, you can talk to the people you are buying it from and ask them what to do with it," she said. "Once we start talking about our food, we can overcome all of these little barriers [we] have. That is our biggest barrier embracing the unknown."

She said to talk to local grocers and restaurants, asking them to provide more local options.

"Ask your waitress or waiter what is local on the menu," she said. "There are a lot of restaurants on the coast and in Mendocino that do an incredible job at sourcing local meat, fish, produce and they don't always promote that prominently. When you are shopping at the store choose the meat that is more local."

She also suggested planting a garden at home.

"Nothing will make you appreciate food, what it takes to produce food and make you more aware of the fragility of life, than growing your own food," she said. "We all depend on it for life.

"Nothing is more proud than eating something you grew yourself. That pride will encourage you to make time to get to the market to support your farmers."

There are several ways to follow Batist's and Bodnar's project online.

? Blog: www.EatMendocino.com

? Facebook: www.facebook.com/eatmendocino

? Twitter: @eatmendocino

? Tumblr: www.eatmendocino.tumblr.com/

Or you can call Noyo Food Forest, 707-964-0218, to volunteer and work alongside Batist in her gardens. Every volunteer leaves with food as thanks for their labor.